“It’s my birthday,” she said, taking the boxed cake out of the backpack.

Joe opened the box and pulled matches out of his pocket. He counted the candles. “Sixteen candles,” he sang out, jiggling himself. He put his arm around her and kissed her full on the mouth. “You legal now, girl.”

Peta pulled away. Grinned. Felt like throwing up. “I got a friend inside.”

“You want to go inside and celebrate with him?” Joe asked. “We not good enough for you?”

Willy laughed. “Sir fucking Dr. Arthur Marryshow, right?”

Happy birthday, dear Arthur, Peta thought.

“How about we light a fire under that cocksucker and turn him into a candle?” Joe said.

Animal! Peta thought, deliberately feeding on Joe’s callousness to harden herself for what lay ahead.

“Great shit.” William took another toke from the joint. “Bring anything else, sweetface?” He rummaged in the backpack and found the beers. “Let’s party.” He opened one of the bottles and slugged down the contents. “You too good to us, girl.” He belched loudly. Joe roared with laughter.

Their noises covered the sounds for which Peta had been waiting, three in succession, Frik’s practiced imitation of the distinctive deep-throated howl of the Mona monkeys he’d often hunted for his dinner pot. She looked at the sky. In the way of the Tropics, darkness had suddenly come upon them.

“Tell you what,” William said. “We’ll save the good doctor a beer and a couple pieces of cake in case he’s alive in the morning.”

“How about some for the other guards?” Peta asked, ignoring the loud beat of her heart in her ears.

“They’s inside. They’ll never know the difference. Nobody out here but us.”

There was a moment of silence as one man toked and the other opened and slugged down another Carib. Too late, Peta tried to cover the silence.